INF Error: Video Driver Not Found

This is a discussion on INF Error: Video Driver Not Found within the Driver Support forums, part of the Tech Support Forum category. I am pulling my hair out here.
I want to update my video card drivers because my video card has

I want to update my video card drivers because my video card has been acting up recently and I want to see if new drivers will fix it (that usually is the first course of action, and would be what Dell or ATI would tell me to do anyways).

I printed out the instructions from ATI's site and followed it to the T. I used Add/Remove Programs and clicked on the ATI Software Uninstall Utility. I rebooted the computer. I went into Safe Mode. I tried to install the drivers.

Upon doing this, every time I run the setup to install the new drivers, I get this error message:

"INF Error: Video Driver Not Found."

This happens if I try to install the latest Catalyst version of 7.12. This happens if I try to install an older Catalyst version, 6.1.

This even happens if I try to reinstall the drivers that I was running that installed fine the first time a couple years ago.

I don't know why it's doing this. Like I said, I still get the error trying to reinstall something that installed fine in the past.

I had to do a System Restore to the restore point I made before I tried to update just to be able to get back into Windows. I guess I'm running half-installed drivers right now (whatever System Restore recovered).

What is wrong? Why can't I install the new drivers (or even reinstall the old ones)?

Yes, that's right. One other thing to add, if you don't already have the Microsoft .NET Framework installed, install it and reboot before following the steps listed above. This is needed for the Catalyst Control Center.

.NET 2.0 is good enough for CCC. You can use a newer version if you want, it doesn't really make any difference to the ATI software.

Removing the card through Device Manager does the same thing as the Add/Remove Programs method recommended by ATI, so there's no danger of losing the device and not being able to get it working again. Windows uses its default VGA driver if an ATI driver is not installed or the card is not recognised, so you'll still have access to the Device Manager and the rest of your system. When you enter VGA mode, the resolution will be much lower than usual and the colors will look strange. This is only temporary and will be restored once the ATI driver is installed.